Spanish Toolkit for Disaster Response

The Spanish Toolkit for Disaster Response aims to help content managers and emergency management personnel distribute critical information to Spanish-speaking communities in a timely manner during the early stages of a disaster. This toolkit includes a wide assortment of messages about disaster assistance, safety, and preparedness that you can share on various social media platforms. This toolkit is designed so that even if you don’t speak Spanish, you can easily locate translated content by searching for the English versions of the messages you want to share.

Using this guide is easy:

Select the appropriate theme and find the English version of the content you want to share.

Copy the Spanish translation of the content, which appears directly below the English version.

Customize the content (if needed) with the location and name of the disaster.

Attach suggested links, graphics, and videos.

Publish on your preferred platform.

Note: all content is formatted for both Twitter and Facebook unless specified otherwise.

Background and Objective

The American demographic landscape is changing. Hispanic Americans currently make up 17% of the total U.S. population; within this group, 32% identify as Limited English Proficiency (LEP) individuals, most of whom are foreign-born adults. Over the next several decades, the majority of U.S. population growth is projected to be linked to new Asian and Hispanic immigration that could represent 38% and 31% of the share of the immigrant population in 2065 respectively. Therefore, the need to provide critical and timely information to Limited English Proficiency communities during emergencies is increasingly essential.

In the early stages of a disaster, there is a greater need for information from affected communities regardless of their background, language proficiency, and socio-economic status. Moreover, when affected communities need critical information and are paying attention, most local emergency managers and staff responsible for creating a digital content strategy don’t have the skills or resources to provide content in Spanish or any other language. This task might be relegated to translators or someone familiar with the language at a later stage of the disaster, causing delays and sacrificing quality in the provision of timely critical information through digital channels.

This initiative aims to help content managers provide critical information in the early stages of a disaster and improve the ability of emergency management agencies at the federal, state, and local levels to provide disaster social media content to Spanish speaking communities.

Disaster Assistance

General Disaster Assistance and Additional Information

If [NAME OF DISASTER] in [STATE/PLACE] left damage where you live and your county was declared as a federal disaster area, apply for assistance.